The Blog That You’ve Read Before

For the past few years we’ve seen a steady increase in remakes at the movies. James Cameron’s Avatar and Christopher Nolan’s Inception are about the only 2 movies in recent history that have made huge numbers at the box office that aren’t based on a previous film, comic book, or any other pre-existing property. A lot of people complain about the lack of originality in the movies and question weather or not Hollywood is out of ideas.

Now I can agree with the fact that we’re running a little low on complete originality at the cinema, but I don’t believe remakes are completely worthless. I’m always interested to see a new take on an old favorite. It’s fun to see a different film maker’s take on a familiar subject and with the advances of technology and visual effects it can be exciting to see how a classic film would look with today’s resources.

I even think there are certain films from yesteryear that could benefit from a remake. One’s that had great visuals but didn’t have the budget to fully realize them. One’s with epic stories, but no thoughts of a franchise that would eventually (and unfortunately) come. Here’s a few movies that if remade with the right group of people, could be amazing.


Road House

To many, this action classic falls in the “so bad it’s good” category. I’m inclined to agree with them, but I also saw it as a franchise that never was. Patrick Swayze’s Dalton could have easily been the American counterpart to James Bond. Every movie Dalton goes to a new bar, with a new chick, and a new bad guy to take down. Its biggest obstacle as a remake is that most probably couldn’t see anyone filling Swayze’s shoes in the role of the bouncer who’s nice…until it’s time to not be nice.


Highlander

This franchise of a swashbuckling immortal clansman is the constant subject of parody these days and I’m a firm believer that most of that is thanks to the sequels that make absolutely no sense. The original Highlander as a stand alone film I still say is an epic classic with it’s biggest flaw being (spoiler alert) that it completely ended the story, leaving no logical opening for a future installments. This is of course why we get a Highlander 2 where the immortals turn out to be aliens in the future, and a third installment that completely denies the second’s existence, and a few more after that are practically unwatchable. When the remake finally gets moving (and it will), hopefully the film makers involved will lay out the story with plans of a franchise. I personally think it would be amazing to see a trilogy filmed back to back Lord of the Rings style and have each film set in a different time period and shot by a different director. Tell me that wouldn’t be awesome!


Hellraiser

The first two (of what a billion now) Hellraiser films are still pretty good by today’s standards in the make up and gore department. But now that so many horror movies are going the Batman Begins route and diving deeper into the psychological and character end of their killers, I’d say it’s time Pinhead came back to the big screen and give all the people who like the lackluster Saw franchise something to really be afraid of. I say get someone like Hugo Weaving to play pinhead and make his journey from man to cenobite the main story arc, and leave the sequels to expand that along with the originals tale of a broken families handling of the mysterious puzzle box. The rumor is Dimension Films has a director attached and a script that will be more teen focused with a PG-13 rating. i.e. It will suck big time.

What other classics do you think need to be remade?